The US Government Makes a $42 Million Bet On Open Cell Networks (theverge.com) 26
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: The US government has committed $42 million to further the development of the 5G Open RAN (O-RAN) standard that would allow wireless providers to mix and match cellular hardware and software, opening up a bigger market for third-party equipment that's cheaper and interoperable. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) grant would establish a Dallas O-RAN testing center to prove the standard's viability as a way to head off Huawei's steady cruise toward a global cellular network hardware monopoly.
Verizon global network and technology president Joe Russo promoted the funding as a way to achieve "faster innovation in an open environment." To achieve the standard's goals, AT&T vice president of RAN technology Robert Soni says that AT&T and Verizon have formed the Acceleration of Compatibility and Commercialization for Open RAN Deployments Consortium (ACCoRD), which includes a grab bag of wireless technology companies like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Dell, Intel, Broadcom, and Rakuten. Japanese wireless carrier Rakuten formed as the first O-RAN network in 2020. The company's then CEO, Tareq Amin, told The Verge's Nilay Patel in 2022 that Open RAN would enable low-cost network build-outs using smaller equipment rather than massive towers -- which has long been part of the promise of 5G.
But O-RAN is about more than that; establishing interoperability means companies like Verizon and AT&T wouldn't be forced to buy all of their hardware from a single company to create a functional network. For the rest of us, that means faster build-outs and "more agile networks," according to Rakuten. In the US, Dish has been working on its own O-RAN network, under the name Project Genesis. The 5G network was creaky and unreliable when former Verge staffer Mitchell Clarke tried it out in Las Vegas in 2022, but the company said in June last year that it had made its goal of covering 70 percent of the US population. Dish has struggled to become the next big cell provider in the US, though -- leading satellite communications company EchoStar, which spun off from Dish in 2008, to purchase the company in January. The Washington Post writes that O-RAN "is Washington's anointed champion to try to unseat the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies" as the world's biggest supplier of cellular infrastructure gear.
According to the Post, Biden has emphasized the importance of O-RAN in conversations with international leaders over the past few years. Additionally, it notes that Congress along with the NTIA have dedicated approximately $2 billion to support the development of this standard.
Verizon global network and technology president Joe Russo promoted the funding as a way to achieve "faster innovation in an open environment." To achieve the standard's goals, AT&T vice president of RAN technology Robert Soni says that AT&T and Verizon have formed the Acceleration of Compatibility and Commercialization for Open RAN Deployments Consortium (ACCoRD), which includes a grab bag of wireless technology companies like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung, Dell, Intel, Broadcom, and Rakuten. Japanese wireless carrier Rakuten formed as the first O-RAN network in 2020. The company's then CEO, Tareq Amin, told The Verge's Nilay Patel in 2022 that Open RAN would enable low-cost network build-outs using smaller equipment rather than massive towers -- which has long been part of the promise of 5G.
But O-RAN is about more than that; establishing interoperability means companies like Verizon and AT&T wouldn't be forced to buy all of their hardware from a single company to create a functional network. For the rest of us, that means faster build-outs and "more agile networks," according to Rakuten. In the US, Dish has been working on its own O-RAN network, under the name Project Genesis. The 5G network was creaky and unreliable when former Verge staffer Mitchell Clarke tried it out in Las Vegas in 2022, but the company said in June last year that it had made its goal of covering 70 percent of the US population. Dish has struggled to become the next big cell provider in the US, though -- leading satellite communications company EchoStar, which spun off from Dish in 2008, to purchase the company in January. The Washington Post writes that O-RAN "is Washington's anointed champion to try to unseat the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies" as the world's biggest supplier of cellular infrastructure gear.
According to the Post, Biden has emphasized the importance of O-RAN in conversations with international leaders over the past few years. Additionally, it notes that Congress along with the NTIA have dedicated approximately $2 billion to support the development of this standard.
That's cool.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Anything that keeps the PLA out of our networks. If it's gotta be someone snooping on me, I'd prefer the Five Eyes to the PLA.
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When your masters talk about "Us and Them" they're not including you in the "Us" bit.
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HHMMMMM
Re: That's cool.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not worried about them arresting me, I'm worried about them spying on me and my allies.
Re: That's cool.... (Score:1)
Yeah, OK anonymous cowardly baby zoomer. As long as the NSA and CIA observe the laws, then I'm not too concerned. Having myself actually analyzed surveillance product and having to know and respect the FISA laws, I'll stick to my opinion. When you've actually read and understood FISA, you can get back to me. ðY(TM)
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Re: That's cool.... (Score:2)
If I'm a shill, then I'm mad, because I haven't gotten even a schilling for shilling!
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Why not? Israel did it when it sold phone switches to the US gov't (including the Pentagon), and Cisco was caught with back doors which they appeared to have provided to the 3-letter agencies. A frack of a lot of security equipment companies have hard coded back doors so that they can service equipment which is supposed to protect secure areas (I probably still have the list on a flash drive somewhere of all the logins we had ferreted out). I'd be shocked if Hauwei equipment didn't.
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https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr... [justice.gov]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
They actively spy on their citizens abroad.
https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
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So does our government (assuming you're American), as does pretty much every other moderately advanced country.
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Maybe you trust the Chinese government to only do thi
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Re:That's cool.... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Open" RAN doesn't have anything to do with "keeping the PLA out of your networks", it's meant to lock you into particular cellular equipment vendors. It's the second-best trick the cellular vendors pulled after the big one, the Chinese bogeyman scare, "don't buy cheaper Chinese gear, buy our overpriced, late-to-market stuff instead!". "Open" RAN is just a bunch of vaguely feel-good concepts with all the details hardwired into proprietary vendor-specific details so it can't talk to anything from any other vendor.
However, as the post I'm replying to demonstrates, it's serving its purpose as a red herring quite well, and the cellular vendors are laughing all the way to the bank - if you can't compete on price or quality, compete on scaremongering and bullshit instead.
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The Huawei 5G infrastucture gear is cheaper because it is heavily *subsidized* by the Chinese Communist Party. (The company was founded by the CCP, probably for narrative-shaping purposes.) Which is why Chinese state-run media (especially the English-language media outlets like the Global Times) got really butthurt and started posting a ton of really transparently fake over-the-top scorn when a few Western countries suddenly decided not to use Huawei's gear for all of their core 5G network infrastructu
Re: That's cool.... (Score:2)
Not entirely sarcastic; see below.
Correction (Score:1)
Correction: ... buy all of their hardware from a non-American company ...
While the power of a US enemy to control global technology is worrisome, here's the real issue: Communication technologies are owned by a number of countries, the US can't fight that. Having one country set the rules, is unsettling to everyone, doubly-so to the USA because it can't excuse itself. While everyone speaks of the US lack of regulation, the reality is, we've become blind to the regulation that does exist, except for Sec
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It's mostly unsettling to the US government and a lot of its citizens simply because we're not able to impose our standards on everyone else any more. We're no longer the single richest market on the planet, and it disturbs some people.
So they'll UN-ban huawei? (Score:1)
Once huawei implement the open standard, they'll be given access to the USA and lackies markets, right?
How this reduces huawei installations compared to the outright ban that the USA enforces domestically and in lackies' countries, I don't see.
Presumably, huawei will be free to sell its equipment into the closed markets, so I expect they'll be happy.